Pittsburgh has George Romero, Baltimore has John Waters, and Boulder has the memory of Stan Brakhage.

Portland has Gus Van Sant, Bill Plympton, Matt Groening, Mike Richardson, Jon Raymond, Aaron Katz, Chel White, Jacob & Arnold Pander, James Westby, Jim Blashfield, Joan Gratz, Joanna Priestley, Matt McCormick, Rose Bond, Vanessa Renwick and Will Vinton.

Ever wonder why?

For cities wishing to replicate Portland’s densely populated cinematic scene, here’s a handy “how to” guide.

1.  Start early.

As soon as people were making films in New York and Fort Lee, they were making them in Portland. Portland’s first film studio, American Lifeograph, opened in 1910. That’s the same year movies came to Hollywood.

2. Have a show business friendly mayor.

During the 16 year tenure of theater-owner-turned-mayor George Baker, downtown Portland was wall to wall theaters. John Gilbert, Clark Gable, William Powell, Edward Everett Horton and Eugene Pallette are some of the actors who jumpstarted their acting careers on the Portland stage, some of them in Baker’s own stock company. It was Baker who renamed Seventh Avenue “Broadway”.

3. Support innovation.

Oregon’s oldest source of print media, The Oregonian, responded to the puzzling new medium of radio by setting up a station right in the Oregonian Tower. Radio later served as an Early Warning System to identify the talent of Portlanders Mel Blanc, Suzanne Burce (renamed Jane Powell by MGM) and Johnnie Ray.

4. Grow your own film processing lab.

After WWII, Portland inventor Frank Hood went to work for a brand new electronics firm named Tektronix. He set up his own home lab to process films he made for them, after losing patience with the delays of sending film to LA. Eventually, he went into business as Teknifilm Lab. For decades, independent filmmaking in Portland was supported by Hood’s lax attitude toward payment schedules.

5. Provide a home for an exiled Hollywood film scholar.

Andries Deinum came to Portland during the blacklist. His vision of film as a mode of social discourse laid the groundwork for PSU’s Center For The Moving Image, housed in Lincoln Hall. Jim Blashfield, Bill Plympton, and Matt Groening were among the faithful attendees of the Center’s influential screening series, run by the Portland State Film Committee.

6. Provide a day job for the guy who wants to mentor the guy who wants to revive the archaic art form of stop motion animation.

Homer Groening led a dual life – ad man by day and experimental filmmaker by night. He had a family, a home, and his own business doing what he loved – and he did it all without leaving Portland. Aspiring filmmaker Will Vinton paid attention, and followed suit. His career, like Groening’s, would encompass both television commercials and art house films, but on a much larger scale.

7. Work with, not against, a pair of cinema addled students who want to start a regional film center.

When the National Endowment for the Arts decided to seed regional filmmaking, they went looking for the right person to submit a grant for a film center in Portland. They were pointed to Brooke Jacobson and Bob Summers, members of the Portland State Film Committee. Brooke and Bob wrote the grant, Portland Art Museum acted as fiscal sponsor, and the Northwest Film Center went into business. This year marks its 40th anniversary.

8. Work with, not against, a visionary film preservationist who wants to create a moving image archive.

Lew Cook was trained as a newsreel photographer by the first generation of Portland filmmakers. His stop motion film, The Little Baker, made circa 1925, proved prophetic when it came to Portland’s future claim to cinema history. He and Thomas Vaughn conceived Oregon Historical Society’s moving image archive, and Cook personally trained the preservationist, Michele Kribs, who currently presides over it.

To re-cap: by the end of the 1970’s, Portland had a film program at Portland State University, a film archive at Oregon Historical Society, and a regional film festival (now the NWFF) located at Portland Art Museum. That nucleus of film creativity on the park blocks was balanced by a film processing lab, an emerging animation studio, and a warehouse waiting to be filled with  filmmakers’ offices over in northwest Portland. No one entity owned the scene – the infrastructure and the support system served all comers.

The following timeline concentrates on factors which contributed to a culture where independent filmmakers supported each other in Portland. It does not address the important role played by Hollywood productions shooting in Oregon. The symbiotic role of Hollywood and the Indies in Portland is embodied in the career of Gus Van Sant who slips and slides with ease between these two worlds.

A timeline:

American Lifeograph founded 1910

Lewis Moomaw makes The Chechacos 1924

Lew Cook makes The Little Baker c1925

PGE makes It Can Be Done c1936

Tektronix founded 1946

Frank Hood founds Teknifilm Lab, early 1950’s

Andries Deinum arrives 1957

Homer Groening starts his own ad agency 1958

Center For The Moving Image founded 1965

Bob Summers and Brooke Jacobson found Northwest Film Center 197o

Tim Smith and Matt Groening make Drugs: Killers or Dillers 1972

Brooke Jacobson founds Northwest Media Project 1974

Will Vinton and Bob Gardiner make Closed Mondays 1974

Don Zavin makes Fast Break 1977

Penny Allen makes Property 1979

Rose Bond makes Gaia’s Dream 1982

Gus Van Sant makes Mala Noche 1985

Bill Plympton makes Your Face 1987

Matt Groening makes The Simpsons 1987

Jim Blashfield makes Leave Me Alone 1988

Joan Gratz makes Mona Lisa Descending A Staircase 1992

Gus Van Sant makes Good Will Hunting 1997.

Miranda July makes The Amateurist 1998

Chris Eyre makes Smoke Signals 1998

Will Vinton makes The PJ’s 1999

Travis Knight makes Coraline 2009

Jon Raymond writes & Neil Kopp produces Meek’s Cutoff 2010, one of five Oregon films at Sundance in 2011.

This post is dedicated to Portland filmmaker/film writer David Walker, who inspired it by raising the question “how rare is regional filmmaking, anyway?”

How did Portland become so cinema saturated?

The blacklist holds some answers.

Andries Deinum,  a Dutch film editor turned educator turned uncooperative House on Un-American Activities Committee witness, was exiled from Hollywood in 1957.  He accepted an offer to move north to teach film at Portland State University and remained here, teaching film and civic engagement through film, for the rest of his life. Long distance, he helped found Film Quarterly magazine. (This is after Ernest Callenback got worn out, and Pauline Kael proved not to be such a great fit.)  He also founded the Center for the Moving Image at PSU (1969 -1981), a precursor to the Northwest Film Center, itself  founded by two Deinum students, Brooke Jacobson and Robert Summers, in 1971.

Here’s an article which explains the role Deinum played in the founding of Film Quarterly, whose motto, “For serious lovers of film”, seems to have inspired all three of Portland’s February film festivals: the Beer and Movies Film Festival, the Cascade African Film Festival, and the Portland International Film Festival.

Another Deinum contribution to Portland’s film culture:

In 1960, Deinum confronted the Portland City Council over censorship of The Lovers, a film directed by Louis Malle, and drew media attention to the role of the arts in public life. He believed that public television, then in its infancy, held the potential “to personalize the impersonalization of mass media . . . the packaging of shows that left them devoid of content.” His 1961 television series, Speaking for Myself, sought citizen involvement in “thinking and feeling” about civic life. Adopting the personal essay form delivered in a conversational mode, Deinum shared his views and invited viewers to respond by writing letters or appearing on the show.

Not a snob, Deinum used Oregon public television to “demonstrate for us relevant and purposeful ways of speaking for ourselves, of confronting corporate media’s control of our theaters and public airwaves, and bringing ethics and aesthetics to bear on public life.”

PSU film professor Brooke Jacobson is writing a book about Deinum, and the above quote is from an essay about his influence.

Meanwhile, with the arrival of Wim Wiewel, Portland has its second dynamic Dutch intellectual urging Portland to think outside the box, when it comes to envisioning an intellectually, economically, and architecturally more abundant future.

It began with a bang. Andries Deinum arrived at PSU in 1957 from LA, and co-founded (long distance) the magazine Film Quarterly. He served on its editorial board until his death in 1995.

The following are the children of Andries. All have some Oregon connection: either they were born here, or moved here, or began their careers here before moving away.

Andries has other film addled children (Cinema Project, I’m looking at you!). These are the ones who write.

Jeff Bayer, The Scorecard Review

Jason Bellamy, The Cooler

Nick Bruno, The Rain Falls Down In Portlandtown

Dennis Cozzalio,  Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule

Erin Donovan, Steady Diet Of Film

Travis Ezell, No Time For Love, Mr. Jones!

Ryan Gallagher, The Criterion Cast

Stan Hall, Beyond The Multiplex

D. K. Holm, Cinemonkey

Brian Kellow, Kael: A Life After Dark

Shawn Levy, Mad About Movies

Jon Lewis, Oregon State University

Aaron Mesh, Willamette Week

Marc Mohan, Mohanthropy, Far From Hollyeood

Kim Morgan, Sunset Gun

Gary Morris, Bright Lights Film Journal, Bright Lights After Dark

Kevin J. Olson, Hugo Stiglitz Makes Films

Darleen Ortega, Opinionated Judge

Jamie S. Rich, Criterion Confessions, dvdtalk.com

Anne Richardson, Oregon Movies, A to Z

Bobby “Fatboy” Roberts, Damnit, Bobby, Nerd Puddle

Mike Russell, Culture Pulp

Eric Snider, Cinematical

Dawn Taylor, Cinematical

John Varley, varley.net

David Walker, Bad Azz Mo Fo, Indie Film Journal, The Missing Reel

Bill Warren, pioneering online film critic

Gary Wolcott, Mr. Movie

Kyle Yount, Kaijucast

You can see some of Taylor’s work this year at the Northwest Film & Video Festival. This is from their website:

A TRIBUTE TO TOM TAYLOR

Sunday, Nov. 8, 2:00 PM

Whitsell Auditorium

Tom arrived in Portland in 1965 from southern California to start the Center for the Moving Image at Portland State University with his mentor, friend, and former professor at USC, Andries Deinum. Together, they incubated and nurtured a community of film and video artists who gained world renown. They also set the stage for the establishment of the Northwest Film Center in 1971.

Tom’s integrity, patience, commitment to social justice, and insistence on craftsmanship continue to remind us of the importance of quality media to the health of democracy. He was an inspiration and guide to many in the late 1960s and ’70s who imagined that telling stories with moving images might be a way to spend a life, and a way to change the world.

Tom Taylor, born in Butte, Montana, on December 4, 1927, died this year on St. Patrick’s Day.

Today we celebrate Tom with a screening of a number of his films, including:

THE POTTER (1956)—A simple, elegantly crafted, beautifully photographed first film about the art, the processes, and the pleasures of being a potter. (12 mins.)

CAPRICE WILL BECOME THE RULE (1969)— Made by Tom and his students, CAPRICE is a delightful and chaotic piece shot during rehearsals for the PSU Group for New Music’s “Beulahland Rag.” (13 mins.)

THE SEVENTH DAY (1970)—A behind-the-scenes look at student protests at Portland State
against the killings at Kent State and the U.S. bombing of Cambodia. (29 mins.)

BECOMING (1973)—A sponsored film produced for the Women’s Division of Continuing Education at PSU that explores the pressures on women to find meaningful lives in a conformist culture. (24 mins.)

IN THIS VERY ROOM (1993)—Produced by the Senior Community Video Project, a community based non-profit Tom founded, IN THIS VERY ROOM offers a poignant look at a project that creatively helps seniors suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s. (13 mins.)

Shot by PSU students using PSU film equipment, The Seventh Day is a half hour documentary of the conflict which took place between PSU student demonstrators and Portland police in the spring of 1970.

Tjerk Dusseldorp directed and produced. Sue Ellen White did sound. Both were students of Tom Taylor, who taught in PSU’s  Center for the Moving Image. Andries Deinum brought Tom Taylor up from California to teach at the Center, a position he held from 1965 to 1981.

A recent Northwest Film & Video Festival described the film:

THE SEVENTH DAY (1970)—A behind-the-scenes look at student protests at Portland State against the killings at Kent State and the U.S. bombing of Cambodia. (29 mins.)

Sue Ellen White, one of the filmmakers, provided this update on the film: ( see comments below)

In May 2011, David Osborn of PSU featured the film, filmmakers and students at the time at PSU’s Open Engagement Conference. He has put the entire film, as well as interviews from filmmakers and students online.http://davidosborn.org/art/

Thank you, Sue Ellen!

I hereby claim The Seventh Day as an Oregon film, based on multiple qualifying criteria.

Ever wonder why Portland is such a film friendly town?

Dutch documentary filmmaker Andries Denium was blacklisted in 1955 for refusing to cooperate with the House on Un-American Activities Committee. He arrived in Portland two years later, in 1957, and spent the rest of his life making Portland safe for film lovers and filmmakers.

Brooke Jacobson, one of the founders of the Northwest Film Study Center, the precursor to the Northwest Film Center, is writing a book about Denium. Her Oregon Encyclopedia entry about Denium gives a brief overview of the accomplishments of this adoptive Portlander, who among other things co-founded Film Quarterly Journal.

Read the rest of Jacobson’s article to see the many fronts on which Deinum was active as an educator, lover of film, and defender of freedom.